


Things That Are Really There

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Parks and Recreation, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 09:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hooded figures tried to stop Leslie from going into the dog park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Are Really There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grangerbutstranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grangerbutstranger/gifts).



"Marshmallows!" Leslie announces. "Vegan ones – Ben, do you…"

"Chris has them," Ben says. "Last time I looked they seemed to be gaining sentience." That's not a figure of speech; he reaches into the bag, feels movement under his hands. "I think they might not be vegan any more."

Chris shakes his head, sadly, and they keep on going. "It's okay," Ben says after a minute, "there are fruit kebabs" - and Chris brightens up for a minute. 

The budget review is going pretty well, for certain values of "pretty well"; Chris has reviewed the figures and Ben has made some recommendations, and it took a couple of weeks to get everything neat and tidy, but although the City Council is pretty much bankrupt it's mostly because they spend their money on secret paramilitary state apparatus and only tax people born on one particular Tuesday in November. It's not that complicated. 

Chris goes running a lot, mostly around, and not in, the dog park, which gives him basically an infinite distance to run and also means he can keep Leslie going around, and not in, the dog park; the hooded figures also tried stopping Leslie from going inside the dog park, but she talked to them for a while about how they're out there in the heat of the day and the chill of the desert night, and from what she's observed they don't get regular breaks to eat and go to the bathroom, and have they considered unionising. The hooded figures don't have facial expressions, but under their cowls it's a curiously _pained_ shadow as dark as void. Ben has put a line in one of his written recommendations about expanding their health benefits. It's really not that complicated.

"You know," Chris is saying, handing him a no-longer-vegan marshmallow – Ben holds it up to the light, and has a weird impression of being under the scrutiny of some inscrutable and mighty intelligence – "you take all this very calmly."

Ben nods. On their first day in town, he met Carlos, the town's resident scientist (and he doesn't understand how a town can have, like, an official scientist, but the guy isn't on the city payroll so he just goes with it). A five-headed dragon had just fluttered overhead, blocking out the sun, and Ben had looked up from the little map on his phone at where it said the City Council offices should be, and looked down into the deep hole in the ground that was there, instead, listened to the unearthly screeching coming from the depths of the earth, and said, to no one in particular, "I think I'm having a mental breakdown." 

The guy standing next to him – and Ben had a weird impression that he hadn't been there a second before – said, merely, "You're the guy from the state government."

Ben nodded, and looked at the tentacles itching and edging their way out of the pit, and felt strangely and wonderfully calm.

Carlos smiled. "You're an auditor. I guess you're good at math? And at seeing things that are really there?"

Wordlessly, Ben nodded.

"Hold on to that," Carlos told him, "it helps. You want to get pizza?"

And they went to get gluten-free pizza, and it tasted okay, pretty good, actually, and Ben carried on being eerily calm and wondered if he should have had a mental breakdown years earlier, if all it entailed was gluten-free pizza and a weird sense of the world tilting beneath your feet; and then, when he met up with her later Leslie told him that she'd run into some interesting people at the Moonlight All-Nite Diner, and could he help her carry home some yard signs. Helping her to carry home the yard signs turned into going to every house in the neighbourhood, even the ones that didn't exist, and talking to people about city education and health policy, but they kept one of the signs for themselves and so in the early hours, when the sunrise is violet and the stars are fading back into the huge invisible space of the universe, if you look out of the corner of your eye, you can make out, in shimmering letters: "Vote Faceless Old Woman For Night Vale Mayor". They can't discuss it too much – when Ben tried he found his mouth full of saltwater and ashes, because ballots in Night Vale really are secret – but their wifi password has now been permanently reset to "thanky0usweetg1rl" and they always have waffles and cream in the house, whether they buy them or not. 

"What about the made-of-animal marshmallows?" Ann asks. 

Leslie eats one, reflectively. "I think they're not… you know. Alive. I mean…" – she swallows in a hurry – "maybe we should check again, before we poke them with skewers and set them on fire."

"Uh-huh," Ann says, dubiously. Ann has been saying all along that Night Vale is a terrible place, that it's a creepy police state and every second person you meet dies horribly, and she started out trying to convince people to live somewhere else, or at least to get Leslie to come home to Pawnee with her, where people still die, but usually not of exceedingly unnatural causes, and when that didn't work, started running classes so everyone in town can get first-aid certified. Ben, Leslie and Chris now know what to do when someone falls in a sinkhole, or gets attacked by butterflies with razor wings, or is overcome by cosmic melancholy in line at Target. (Long rope; antiseptic wipes; kindness, and don't mention the futility of existence.)

And of course, she's right – and the election is coming closer and the budget plan is in place, and so, pretty soon now, they will go home. But in the meantime, as they settle on a place in the sands, under the glow of a beautiful desert sunset, Ben is pretty sure they're doing okay. Leslie and Ann brought plenty of supplies; Chris is building a fire. Ben can sit here, quiet and still, under a night sky coming alive with bits of the universe, and think peaceful, contented thoughts about a world large and unknowable, and the importance of democratic participation, and community, and also, s'mores.


End file.
